After three days of shooting, ten thousand photos taken, and a huge amount of work, the London 80 Gigapixel Panorama is finished and online…

It is the largest 360° ever made to date… Be sure to zoom in all the way!

If you want to publish anything about this image in your blog, newspaper, or anywhere else, here is The Press Release. If you want some screenshots / images from this panorama, you can download the media package.

This image is, I would say, the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced as a photographer, and the finished product is certainly one of the highlights of my photographic career. That said, it’s far from perfect, and those of you who want to seek our imperfections in the image will have no problem doing so. (To save those folks the trouble, I have chronicled some of the problems and shortcomings of the image in another post.)

The third competition, launching in beginning of December, is something new, and I’m not sure it’s even been done before, which is really exciting! It is a storytelling competition. Using the London Gigapixel image, you’ll be able to write your own story, using parts of the London Gigapixel image itself – zoom in (or out) on any part of the image, put a sentence (or more) there, and repeat, until you have a story. Publish this story to the Web; you and your friends can vote on the best stories, and win more than $3000 in holiday-related prizes from Urban Adventures and Homeaway.

Last but not least, please read my Special Thanks – I was only able to make this image (and learn how I might do it) because lots of people have helped me!

jeffrey says:

Streetview doesn’t “have to” blur anything (except in one or two countries, maybe) – they do it because it is good PR, and streetview is not intended to be art – it is a navigational tool primarily.

From our FAQ:
“I can read license plates and see faces! Isn’t that illegal?

The last time we checked, it is perfectly legal to practice the art of photography in most places on planet Earth. We have blurred out the faces of identifiable children, because as we understand it, it is a tremendous crime to photograph and publish images of children without the consent of their parents. We also blurred out one “naughty bit”.”

Hi Jeff,
wonderful picture and very clear with very much details.
But it is not the largest pano in the world, maybe it is the largest 360/180 pano. The largest pano i know is from Rio de Janeiro and has mor than 150 Gigapix (but it is not so clear as yours): http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/58857/

Greg Downing of xrez.com, in the comments of that image, compared his own 5 gigapixel image of the same view – the resolution appears to be about the same. So I think we can discount this image from the annals of fame

Adam says:

This is a fabulous achievement and I look forward to spending time looking through all of it.
However, I find it counter intuitive to use, particularly after being used to dragging Google maps and streetview around. Please could you offer the option to reverse the direction of clicking and dragging up, down, left and right. Many thanks.

Fauzy Wan says:

The details are amazing, I could not find pictures of cats or pigeons on rooftops which is very different if it were my a local city in Malaysia. Hmm, I need to explore more, maybe I am just not finding it.

AGAPITO ESPINOZA says:

Wow, that’s amazing work – after having shot more than 3000 panoramic images for our panoramic cityguide, I know what I’m talking about – this London image blew me away. And I envy your work conditions – three days for one shot, in the hotel business we get like a two hour slot for ten rooms ; )

[...] Prague, Czech Republic, November 16, 2010 crown as the largest spherical panoramic photo in the world. The image of London, at 360cities.net/london, has a total resolution of 80 gigapixels, or 80 billion pixels. Shot by photographer Jeffrey Martin over a period of three days from the top of the Centre Point building at the crossroads of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, the image reveals the highest-resolution view of any city that has ever been captured. From this vantage point – 36 stories up in the air – an astonishing number of landmarks, houses, skyscrapers, shops, offices, and streets are visible. Countless people at street level are observable, as well as thousands of windows, many of which reveal glimpses of life inside. In short, it is a portrait of London, the likes of which has never been made before. Previous attempts at world record gigapixels include a 26-gigapixel image of Paris, a 70-gigapixel image of Budapest, a 26-gigapixel image of Dresden, and Martin’s previous record holder from 2009, an 18-gigapixel spherical image of Prague. This new London gigapixel image, if printed at normal photographic resolution, would be 35 meters long and 17 meters tall (115 feet x 56 feet). Martin, a panoramic photographer and the Founder of 360Cities.net, created the London gigapixel image from 7886 high-resolution individual photos taken from the Centre Point building. These thousands of photos were then stitched together as one single image on a powerful Fujitsu CELSIUS workstation, provided for the project by Fujitsu Technology Solutions. The computer comprises dual 6-core CPUs, 192GB of RAM, and a 4GB graphics card. To encourage people to explore the 80-gigapixel image of London in its finest detail, 360 Cities will launch three separate contests to find and describe items or places in the photo. In the first contest the winner will receive a Fujitsu 27″ LCD monitor provided by Fujitsu Technology Solutions, computer and camera bags provided by Crumpler.com will be awarded in the second, and in the third contest, over $3000 worth of holidays will be awarded, courtesy of Intrepid Travel (intrepidtravel.com) and their subsidiary, Urban Adventures (u Further information about the making of the image can be found at – A newly published 360-degree photo of London takes therbanadventures.com). http://blog.360cities.net/london-gigapixel. [...]

David says:

Edward says:

This is one of the best things I have ever seen on the web. The ability to select a barely visible building in the distance and zoom in so close without losing clarity and detail is amazing. Well done on achieving such an incredible feat!

I remember seeing a panorama similar to this last year, I think from somewhere in Germany…

But this is far superior, not just because I’m British born & bred and lived 3 years in the North of London, but because it gives a sense of direction and relative location to all the famous sights we’ve all heard of but never had the time to explore!

As an Electronic Engineer I was fascinated to explore the array of communications equipment on the Telecom Tower. I’m sure that I’ll spend all my spare time exploring the capital thanks to your excellent image.

Where will you be next? Please let me know if you intend to do Istanbul in Turkey…

Utterly understand what your stance in this matter. Though I would disagree on some of the finer details, I feel you probably did an superior job explaining it. Certain beats having to research it on my own. Thanks